Inside Max Gate.

The story of Max Gate is not especially happy. Thomas Hardy moved into it with Emma, his first wife, when he had become a successful author. At some point that relationship soured and Emma took hersalf off to the attic rooms. She was superceeded by the much younger Florence, who after Emma's death bcame the second Mrs Hardy. Florence was thity-nine years younger than her husband. Hardy was filled with remorse for his treatment of Emma as soon as she had died. He wrote no more novels but many poems about his lost love - he was a complex man! Photos of Emma in youth and old age.

The relationship with Florence started with her writing to Hardy in admiration. She then became his secretary before finally becoming his wife.

Emma described the two rooms in the attic as her 'boudoir', not a very accurate description of the two cramped little rooms with their sloping ceilings.

Downstairs a photograph taken in 1899 of the drawing room makes me grumpy. It shows a room full of Victorian clutter, yet I am standing in a room that is tastefully and tidily displayed. I've visited many National Trust properties over the years and seen the character gradually taken out of a place by this desire for tidying up. When they have good photographic evidence why don't they try to replicate it?

In the dining room one or two items of furniture are original to the house but most of the contents were sold at auction, together with the house, with the contents of Hardy's study going to the museum in Dorchester.

A very plain kitchen, and once again, very tidy. I wonder what it was really like?!

The upstairs rooms are all rather small. Hardy had more than one study, this one (not with his origonal desk) is where he wrote 'Tess." I like the fireplace, it will have been cosy in winter with a fire in the grate.